14,000, but now it's only down by 54 points. look at that. the leader on the dow is walmart today, and it's kind of interesting. this is a gauge of consumer spending. u.s. sales weakness persisted into early february. remember, we had that e-mail leak. kind of expecting this. walmart is up today. >> today's thing that makes you go hmm. not really sure what atlantic university is thinking. renaming the football stadium to geo group stadium. okay. except geo group is a priflt prison corporation based in south florida. the company will donate 6 million to fau over the next six years, the ceo is an alum and a member of the board of trustees, a good gesture, i get it. the optics, you have to admit, not adele even looking through. attention all red sox fans. curt schilling's bloody sock is

up for sale. here's brian schactman. >> reporter: i touched it yesterday. as a sox fan i touched the sock. >> did you wash your hands is this. >> do it like southie does. >> you criticize mine. >> sock. >> reporter: even though it's kind of odd, a long song with dried blood back. those not in the know, want me to keep going like this, sul? 2004. curt schilling pitched a six-inning world series gem on a damaged ankle so, dang it had bled through the sock, as you see. the sox ended up winning the title for the first time in 86 years. need this little history level and the sock became an iconic symbol of it. since retiring from a career in which he made $114 million schilling's video game captain went bankrupt and he's selling the sock through heritage optics. guess we're not going to use the sound bite. >> show is over. >> 64,000 is the current bid. >> think it may get half a

million. >> thanks for joining us on "street signs." see you tomorrow. hi, everybody. we enter the final stretch on wall street. welcome to the "closing bell." i'm maria bartiromo at the new york stock exchange. this market once again solidly in the red, again, bill, on top of yesterday's big selloff. >> i'm bill griffith. investors concerned about the federal possibly taking its food foot or the gas pedal and less than stellar economic claims out. job claims didn't thrill anybody and either did the philly fed so the second straight down day. though the dow was down 93, it's down 52. almost cut the decline in half at this point. anything can happen this final hour. >> no doubt about it. a fair and exclusive millionaire coming up with stormer hedge fund manager stanley druckenmiller. he's sounding the alarm on our debt and deficit and is coming up in a few minutes. we'll want to get his take on all that have. >> looking forward to that.

after the bell, dow component hewlett-packard with a crucial earnings report. david faber is inside h-p today with information no one else will have. we'll be here and will have the numbers as soon as they are released at the top of the hour. >> which could set the tone for tomorrow. aig reporting after the bell. we talk with robert benmoschy after the company reports. his company in the top position in hedge funds, topping apple. we'll ask him about that and a lot more. >> down day continued the slide from yesterday afternoon and continued first thing this morning. overnight asia down hard and this morning europe down hard and it continued in the u.s. this morning. down 56, cutting the declines in half to 13,870 on the dow. the nasdaq down 35 pints. hardest hit again today, down 1.3% at 3128. just read the numbers, bill, and the s&p right now down ten

points at 1501. let's get straight to the markets and what these moves mean for your money. in today's closing bell exchange rob mciver from jensen investment management and david steinberg from dls and brian beleskey from bmo capital markets, and our very own rick santelli. mr. beleskey, you've been bullish this market. i know you don't think it's going to go straight to the sky in one line, but what do you make of this latest turn in sentiment the last couple of days? >> stop the presses, bill, the market is down. everyone looking for a bit of a correction. we just got back from europe last night and european investors aring is a 2013 so far. gotten into european stocks a little bit early and have forgotten the u.s. remains the best and most stable asset in the world. stocks have gotten a little ahead of themselves. from a longer term perspective we've always said people that try to predict corrections it's a fool's game. invest longer sperm, stay with the quality stocks and the best equity in the world. it's right here in the united

states. >> yeah. but you can't put your money in stocks and forget about it, right? when you look at the federal reserve and its actions, rob, how do you navigate the fed taking its foot off the gas a little bit? a lot of debate going on about whether or not that begins, the winding of qe3 this year? how do you want to navigate your portfolio ahead of these approaches by the fed? >> well, i think the fed's moves, maria, are not unexpected. it would happen sooner or later, and, therefore, one could argue the fed reducing the question program, stimulus program, is fundamentally good for the u.s. economy because it can stand on its own two feet, but within the market, probably there's some more risk in the smaller, lower quality, more cyclical companies that have taken the lead over the last couple of quarters, so we, for example, see real opportunities in what we believe to be high-quality growth companies, companies like oracle, colgate palmolive or one

of the world's leading strong gas companies, praxair. >> an eclectic mix there. david steinberg, how would you navigate what appears to be a change in market sentiment as it pertains to the fed right now? >> i think it's just a temporary situation. watch what the fed is doing, not what they are saying. it could could very well have been a trial balloon they are sending up to maneuver, you know, the mentality of, you know, the markets. bottom line, bond yields are too low to make any money. equities can navigate different environments over the lounge run, and the fed is in a tough box with fiscal miss management out of washington where it's at. i right now don't think they have any choice but to continue along the same path they have been until we come up with some form of a deficit reduction, and it runs smaller, you know, smaller balances. >> right.

then you throw in the sequestration that's about to hit, march 1st. rick santelli, every reason to believe that there's enough noise out there that perhaps we're going to be able to get into this market at lower levels, with that buy on the dip mentality? >> i don't disagree. i actually found when mr. belski very interesting. he said that they are having a tough time. he just came back from europe. well, let's look at something so simple. let's look at a year-to-date of the daxx and the kak. not only did they have a bad day, but looking at in euro terms or dollar terms because euro is gose close to where it was at the end of the year, both down on the year. granted only half of 1%, but it is truly significant. you know, the kicking of the tires by the fed, i can't tell you what they are going to do, but the fact is it's like getting a high five on apple when it was 700. it's possible that what the fed is doing could chart a chain

reaction, but no matter how you slice it, the soft economics in europe are not only putting their bourses down, we're at a 5%, 6% spread, so the more they go down, traders down here thinks it drags us down. >> yeah. our treasuries haven't moved all that much. look at the dow, down just 34 points. as we said, down 93 at the lost day. not going to call this the belski bounce, brian, but what would you be buying here if you're buying this dip? >> well, listen, mr. griffith, we continue to be very bullish from a longer term perspective on areas like industrial, energy and technology. we think those three areas will benefit from a u.s. domestic recovery the second half of the year. when cap-x, yes, cap-x comes back into vogue, and that's the long-tail trade that could last three to five years and will really continue to help the u.s. outperform. mr. santelli is exactly right on

the europeans. they remain very reluctant owners of the u.s. stocks, don't want to be here, reluctantly trying to come back but already too late because their heels dug in so far on european stocks this year, and they are having a tough time digging out. >> brian, what's the trade then? you're bullish on this market. where do you want to be exposed to? i mean, for example, would you buy the banks here? >> well, that's a great question, maria. here's the answer. we think investors are doing themselves a great disservice just buying bank etfs. they should be buying individual bank stocks. don't like the money center banks here from our work principally because we think the commercial banks, the more domestically focused regional banks like u.s. bank and pnc and comerica and wells fargo are much better positioned than the big money center banks because we believe the specter of major over global regulation is not over yet, and we think some investors have become too complacent with respect to chasing up these big banks with

respect to performance in the portfolios, and we think it's a little dangerous near term. >> gentlemen, thank you all. a very form al closing bell exchange. thank you all for joining us today. we'll see you later. and look again. >> coming back. >> the dow was down 30 points just a moment ago. is it possible we could be positive at the close? >> are you going to stick your neck out? >> i'm not going to go there today. >> dow component hewlett-packard is set to report earnings in about an hour. josh lipton here with more. >> hewlett-packard expected to report after the bell and the street looking for earnings per share on 71 cents of sales of 21.79 billion. beyond the bottom and top lines, what do analysts want to see? i spoke earlier to a member of rbc. three numbers he'll looking for in this one. one, how is the services business doing? that's been a challenging business for the past few quarters and where the turnaround is focused. two, printing margins. they should have a big tailwind he says because of yen

depreciation. finally free cash flow. is the company continuing to do the 2 billion of free cash flow on a quarterly basis that most expect? as for hewlett-packard's stock, up 18% this year. that's the best performance in the dow. some say investors are hoping that the company will split or sell some of its business units. the problem is that the pc, printers, server and services business are intertwined in terms of sales, people, customers and infrastructure, making a clean separation difficult. back to you guys. >> all right. thank you so much, josh. >> heading towards the close with 50 minutes left. going to be interesting to see. if you just joined us, at one time the dow was down 93 points at the low of the session. we've seen some back, especially this last half hour or so. now down 34 points. we'll watch as we head towards the close here. >> coming up, legendary hedge fund manager stanley druckenmiller is here with a message to lawmakers. are you looking to crush the

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. welcome back. investors getting mixed signals about the housing comeback. let's get to diana olick with the story. >> reporter: home sales in january were essentially flat, but inventories continue to shrink, and that's why we're going to see more price gains. take a look, the supplies. 1.74 million homes for sales, the lowest since december of 1999 right before y2k, and at the current sales pace it

represents a 4.2-month supply and we haven't seen that since the height of the housing boom. the reason, number one, falling foreclosures. that's why supplies have dropped so much out west where the bulk of sales were foreclosures and where investors had honed in. that's actually the only reason that saw a drop in home sales in january. another reason for low supplies is negative equity. people can't sell if they are underwater on their mortgages but good news there. zillow reporting 2 million botheroers came up from a negative equity position thanks to rising home prices and still elevated foreclosures because, of course, if you lose the house you're no longer listed under water. 14 million are still under water. zillow estimates 1 million more will come into a positive equity in 2013, and that bodes well for the remodeling industry because it puts more money back into people's pockets, so we want to think about the home retailers and how they are going to do this year. bill? >> all right, diana, thank you very much. sticking with housing. shares of home improvement

retailers lowe's and home depot after both companies were downgraded. home depot's stock drop is helping to fuel the dow losses today, but is either one a buy right now on this dip? let's start talking numbers today, home depot versus lowe ease. on the technical side, rich ross and on the fundamental side is jeff kilberg, founder of kkm financial and, of course, a cbs contributor. jeff, i'll start with you on the fundamental side. it's said maybe housing has peaked here. time to get out of these companies. do you like either of these near term? >> well, sir griffith, i do like both of these companies, but i don't like them at these levels. we've seen a sensational run off arguably the worst real estate correction in our nation's history. both of these companies really enjoyed nearly a 90% move but right now folks at home depot come back down, not to steal richard's thunder, but come back down over a 200-day moving average due to the fact that

they are the big player, the varsity team member here. 2,250 stores in comparison to lowe's 1,750 stores, but honestly you're seeing home depot with their initiative and leadership over the lagging growth of lowe's. looking for an opportunity to own this because housing has recovered, bill, it has. >> go get him, rich. >> i'm with you. i think both stocks go lower, but i think you have a way to have your cake and eat it, too. see the performance. home depot has been dominating since the 2009 bottom outperforming lowe's by over 70%. we think that outperformance is going to reverse. you now want to sell home depot and buy lowe's. bring up the chart of home depot, the stock up 45% from last may. that's outperforming the s&p by over 25%. now we get a bearish double top at the tail end of that run. we're testing a key nexus of support which is created by that trend line. the 50-day moving average and prior resistance at 65. you break below that level and

we test 58. now on lowe's no double to. you push out to a fresh high at lowe's. that tells us a period of outperformance, lowees over home depot has set to begin. >> those charts look very similar in the aggregate, don't they? >> yeah, rich. let me take a home dew point 2 x 4 to the side of your hide because you'll see lowe's at the end of the day. the last couple of quarters, a reason why their growth has been so sub par to the rest of the industry. home builders in general, specifically home depot. they are a laggard. a reason for the laggard, and that will come out in the rest of the 2013. home depot is the way to go. sorry to hit you up side that head >> you know what, jeff, might not look like much, but i'm a heck of a do-it-yourselfer and when i see home depot trading at 23 times earnings, the last time we traded 23 times earnings back in 2010, two months later the stock was 27% lower, 23 times earnings, too rich for me on home depot. the spread is too wide. $27 spread between the two.

>> we're arguing the same sentiment due to the fact that we've seen such a move in the s&p 500. >> right. >> look at where home depot is dragging the dow down. 10, 15 points of the actual dow so it's a big component, a global drag, but, honestly, there's an opportunity to either one of these names but we prefer home depot. >> you guys are not that far apart in this case. thanks for this edition of "home improvement" or "this old house." >> breaking news with mary thompson. >> reporter: david einhorn concluded a conference call with investors outlining his strategy on how apple should deal with the $137 billion cash pile in detailing his proposal. einhorn pointed to other companies shareholder friendly. what he wants apple to do is issue i-preps or perpetual preferred shares.

here's what he had to say. >> we've developed a brand new capital markets product that offers apple a chance to creatively maximize value for shareholders while at the same time hold on to its cash to pursue its existing business strategy. in addition, apple -- >> now, i-preps, of course, perpetual preferred shares with a face value of $5 a share and will pay investors a $2 share annual dividend. basically he said this wouldn't even really mean apple would have to touch the cash pile. basically they could found it out of cash flows because it would cost the company $470 million a year. again, he says right now the only thing hurting apple is the status quo so once genuine horn urging the company to unlock some of that cash that's been what he called hoarding at this time. he also said that he looks forward to speaking with apple's ceo sometime in the near future. bill, back to you. >> i'm sure he does. thank you very much, mary

thompson. this market teaseasing us here. on the comeback trail. the dow down 93 points but now just 39. >> famed former hedge fun manager stanley druckenmiller said runaway government spending is threatening our children and future generations. his strategy on how to deal with that? and later we'll hear from an american tire company engaged in a public feud with france. decided not to buy a factory in that country calling the french workers lazy. >> you don't want to miss that interview. stay with us here on the "closing bell." tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 when i'm trading, i'm so into it, tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 hours can go by before i realize tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 that i haven't even looked away from my screen. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550

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all right. we want to get you caught up on the markets. if you just joined us, turning into a very interesting day here. as we mentioned, the low of the day, around 2:00, 2:30 eastern time we were down 93 points on the dow. comeback in the last hour or so. now we're down just 27 points. now, i want to see what this has done to some of the other asset classes out there. the yield on the ten-year note was down around 196. it's come back a little bit. so not much there. again, the very narrow range for that, but the dollar index

continues to go higher here. we've come off the highs. a seven-month high for the dollar index. and the volatility index, the vix, the fear indicator, has been very strong for the week so far. it was up about 28% at its peak, but we've come off the high there, but still a healthy gain of about 5% right now at 1539, but still, maria, the dow down just 29 points. >> yeah. >> with 35 minutes to go. we'll keep an eye on that. good comeback. right now i'm joined by stan druckenmiller who ran a hedge fund that produced average annual returns of 30%, out performing many of his peers. before starting that fund druckenmiller reportedly made $1 billion in a single day shorting the british pound while working with george soros and here to talk about the issues of the

day, education reform jeff canada of the harlem children zone, a group focusing on underprivileged children and together with a former governor, penned a "wall street journal" op-ed saying "generational theft needs to be arrested." made the case that washington is crushing the next generation with its failure to get spending under control, and we're happy to have you both on the program. >> thanks, maria. stan, let me kick you off with you. you argue the often protected entitlement spending should be cut. why and what moved you to write this op-cincinnati red. >> what moved me to write the op-ed, i actually go back a long way on this issue. as you know, i managed money for 30 years, and i thought primarily money managers should manage money and not go on shows like this, frankly, but in '94 i came out when clinton and gingrich were doing their thing. frankly at the time i wanted to

raise the age limit on social security and medicare recipients, and i wanted to raise it in 2010 because i figured in '94 no one would care, and that was also when the demographic thing kicked off, so it's been a long time on this issue for me. well, we're there now, and -- >> no we're at the age. >> in '94 entitlements were 50% of federal outlays, up from 28% in 1960, but to my horo under the george bush administration they went from 50 to 63, medicare "d." now at 67% of all federal outlays are entitlements. maybe put that in perspective. if you look at the actuaries out there, entitlements are scheduled to grow 700 billion in the next four years. >> 700 billion in the next four years. >> just to change in entitlements. that's as the deck gramps kick in. >> you wanted to raise the entitlement age. now they are debating this. but how much would just raising

it for medicare, from 65 to 67, how much money does that get you? >> well, it depends on over what time period but a lot. it's debatable because we don't know who -- how much people get sick from 65 to 67, but it moves the needle a lot. don't forget, when social security was started in oat 30s, the average life expectancy was 47. we were at 65 then and at 67 now then. >> women, we're at 81. i mean, life expectancy has moved up. the demographics are obviously night and day when social security started and we haven't changed these programs. it's actually quite extraordinary. >> jeff, you deal with young people, and you're working with young people. do they understand the implications? from your standpoint what is the number one threat to their future? >> look, a couple of things, maria. number one, i got interested in this issue because i've learned to listen when stan druckenmiller says something big is going to happen to the

country. listened before the tech bubble. more than a year he said it would be a disaster, and on the mortgages, more than a year before he said this is going to be a disaster. both times i realized how right it was. when he began to show me what's going to happen to my kids. these are kids we work with, 2, 3, 4 years old, go to college. everything is going to be fine. it's not going to be fine. we're going to spend all of their money right now. guys my age in their 60s. we're not thinking about the next generation, and this is a disaster for america. >> what is going to happen to the kids? >> the implications that we're going to spend money that ought to go towards education and their retirement and towards research and development, we're going to spend that money now on medicare, medicaid and social security because we don't have the courage to tell my generation, hey, guys, we're going to have to tone this down. it's too much. >> maria, you know i don't like to go public, but the last straw for me was the whole fiscal cliff fiasco.

>> it was a fiasco. >> first of all, the media was more concerned about the fiscal cliff and what might happen to the economy over the three months than the big picture which is the debt which is going to swallow our kids in 15 or 20 years. >> it's going to 22 trillion. >> yeah. secondly. they totally take a pass on entitlements which is the problem. >> no accountability. >> and the president comes out and says i'm not going to do this on the back of seniors. those seniors, that we put out in the article, are all taking out more than they put in, and it's guaranteed under the system today that all the kids are going to get less than they are putting in, and i'm a lot more worried about what jeff is referring to. i've told him, you know, the bond market is a funny thing. in greece the bond market was perfectly fine until february of 2010. not moving, not doing anything, and then in two weeks it was over. all right? so what i'm going to tell you is the reason we're here is and the

reason we've come out is i think we have time to deal with this issue. if we don't deal with it in the next four or five years, we'll wake up and interest rates will explode and the next generation will have a very, very tough time and it's so unfair. >> howie is veer a spike in rates be? i mean, it's extraordinary to me that this market has not focused on this at all, even in the fiasco at the end of 2012, stocks going higher, going higher. you have to believe that's partly because of the fed. >> it could be a long, long time before it happens. maybe that's why they haven't focused on it and just consider this, and i've heard you talk about 16 trillion. seems to be your favorite number. >> one of mine. >> 16.4 trillion. how about we're spending more than 1 trillion than we take in every year, another one of my favorites. >> when we were at 10 trillion, now at 16 drill yofnl contract cost on 16 trillion is 20% less than it was on the 10 trillion.

come on. do you think that's sustainable? so, if you normalize interest rates, i'm not talking about a spike. normalize where they were before qe and take them to 5.5% costs of the federal debt, that's 500 billion a year in interest expenses goes out door. we're having a heart attack over an $85 billion skywester when we can lose 500 billion if you normalize. the way markets work, maria, if and when that were to happen, you don't normalize, you keep going because the market figures out that you now have a credit problem which is exactly what's happened in the foreign nations. >> do you think we'll see a blowup in this market this year when people start realizing the effects? >> i don't think you can time it at all. the fed is a very powerful institution, and in some extent by printing all their money, printing the money they are it's keeping the game going, but the irony is probably the unintended

consequence of the fed right now is congress is not getting the market signal we talked about in the article so you can scream all you want about congress and the president being clowns. i can't think of any political system anywhere where they acted without interest rates going up. when did greece act? when the bond market blew up. when did spain act? when the bond market blew up. what was clinton's response to rubin, you mean the f'ing bond market is in control. doing what they are doing the politicians have no incentive, but the market is a very fickle and volatile thing. i don't think it's today, but it will certainly be -- we've got 3-year-old kids we've promised we'll get them through college and once college is done we'll get them a job. it's going to happen before those kids. when? i don't know. >> you're talking about putting money towards education. >> yeah. >> where does this money come in from if we're talking about cutting. >> here is our issue.

we can't eat our seed corn. can't educate kids or invest in research and development because we don't want to touch with the entitlements that deal with seniors. if you deal with the entitlement issue there's plenty of resources that support the things that will keep america great. this is really about the future of the country. a bunch of guys my age thinking i want to get it all is fine, but we've got a commitment to a bunch of 3-year-olds, and we've got to make sure those kids have an america where they have a future the way we had a future. >> they had a great way to put it. >> maria, we've got time. if we act now, we've got time. the reason we've come out is time is running out, and this was the last window probably before 2017. you asked me about the bond market. can it last until 2017? i don't know. but i do know if we're going down this path it's going to lead to a mohr challenging environment than we had '07 to '09. we can stop this. it's so easy too. >> how do you stop it?

what's so easy? >> entitlements. means test people like me on social security. you realize i've done all right in life, okay? i'm going to start getting social security checks in five years. it's absurd. >> ridiculous. >> and i'll get the same social security checks from some people who have not done so well are and the same thing with medicare. raise the ages, as i pointed out earlier. when all this stuff was started, life expectancy was way below where it was now, and frankly probably the guesses on life expectancy where they are are too low. it's not that hard. >> the average guy and gal out there understands and they buy into it, and they are saying i don't need the social security check, cut it, but the policy-makers, don't. so during this interview we're talking to policy-makers, heads of state policy-makers are watching, and we're also talking to the investor class. you've been prescient in terms of the new dotcom setting us up for a fall and the mortgages

were setting us up for a fall. given how closely you look at things and the fundamentals and how you stud they market, from an investment standpoint, would you say, does this stuff dictate how you'll be allocating money in this market? >> not at the current moment. i think if you look at the current market, a lot of money came out of market the last four years, particularly the last few months, frankly, because of the tax implications of the fiscal cliff, and with the fed printing $85 million a month, this is not an immediate concern. however, this can't go on forever, and it's sort of an irony. the longer it goes on and the longer we ignore the signals, and if we weren't the reserve currency we couldn't ignore the signals, the worse it will be. jeff used a great term. we're eating our seed corn. i don't know if it's later on in the year, whether it's three years, but right now i think the market is fine. again, we have time. it all depends on whether we deal with this or not. >> the market is fine because you've got all the free money in

the federal reserve. >> yeah, but that can only -- that can only last so long. eventually the hamster can't move on the wheel anymore and the free money has less and less impact. >> one of the challenges that stan and i worry about, along with kevin is, when this stops, who is going to be caught holding the bag? it's not going to be my generation. we're trying to dump all of this in my kids in harlem who are trying to do everything they can to live the american dream and that's going to disappear for them. >> final question, guys. let's say we continue on this path and nothing is done and actually sequestration takes effect on march 1st. is that a good thing? is this going to push us into shape and say, okay, jobs are going to be cut. this is a serious thing. is that the catalyst to get people looking, or no? >> the hype over sequestration is a joke. >> same thing about fiscal cliff. >> sequestration is 85. if you net out sandy, you're talking about a quarter of 1% of gdp. we went from 42% government

spending to 15% government spending. 42 to 15, not 42 to 41.75, and the economy grew like mad in jobs and gdp right after world war ii. under clinton we cut government spend aing to gdp, 300 basis points, not 25, 300, and the economy was just fine. sequestration is not the issue. i'm just not worried about sequestration. >> begin the cuts already is your bottom line. >> but i've got to tell you, let's get to the entitlements. that's where the money is, and more importantly, that's the unfairness is. >> the only thing i want to say is this is not about depriving people of essential supports and services. this is really doing reasonable, moderate kinds of reform which will make a huge difference and that's what no one wants to talk about. >> what a great conversation. gentlemen, really appreciate your time. such an important issue, and you guys coming out and addressing it straight on is a real value. thank you very much. >> really appreciate it.

stan druckenmiller and jeffrey canada. meanwhile, the market coming off its lows, down 29 points on the dow jones industrial average. and walmart shoppers feeling the pinch of higher taxes, higher gas prices and courtney reagan is here with the details on that. aig ceo bob benmosche will join me to break down the earnings before we speak to analysts. that's all coming up later on "closing bell." back in a moment. stay with us. understand my charts, and spend more time trading. their quick trade bar lets my account follow me online so i can react in real-time. plus, my local scottrade office is there to help. because they know i don't trade like everybody. i trade like me. i'm with scottrade. (announcer) scottrade. voted "best investment services company."

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walmart one of the few bright spots in the dow today after reporting better than expected earnings but it raises some red flags about the consumer. >> reporter: a lot of discussion about walmart after a leak of a report that cited disastrous sales in february. u.s. same-store sales for the quarter are flat. flat isn't disastrous. the retailer noting trends have normalized in the past week. today's trade maybe a bit of relief. a ripple effect of the new tax regulations causing delays for

americans receiving tax refunds. that's what the world's largest retailer is blaming for the slow start to february. bill simon, ceo of walmart u.s., made a surprise appearance on the media call to explain saying at this point last year walmart had cashed $4 billion in tax refunds compared to just 1.7 billion this year. traffic was slightly negative for q4 continuing a downward trend for u.s. same-store sales. walmart beat estimates by 10 cents and net interest expense was lower so some analysts are considering the eps result in line with the 157 consensus or even a slight miss, than a big beat. when it comes to q1 guidance it was on the light side. wayne hood thinks the street needs to lower its expectations with what's going on with the consumer on the macro economic pressures. >> thanks so much. 15 minutes before the closing bell sounds for the day. we have a market well off of the

lows. down 34 points on the dow. >> while you and stan and jeffrey were talking, the dow came back, down 13 points. the teasing continued, and we'll see if we can continue that to the close. when we come back, bob pisani in the middle of the action at the big board, can this come back and hewlett-packard spiking earnings. that's at the top of the hour and is a dividend in the cards for aig? ceo bob benmosche joins me excloout conclusively minutes after the company releases earnings less than 30 minutes from now. we're back in a moment. stay with us. i have low testosterone. there, i said it. how did i know? well, i didn't really. see, i figured low testosterone would decrease my sex drive... but when i started losing energy and became moody... that's when i had an honest conversation with my doctor. we discussed all the symptoms...

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. welcome back. it looked pretty bad for a while. market down almost 100 points earlier, but the market is off the low today. >> bob pisani will join us later with a take. we discovered what caused some of the comeback for the dow. hewlett-packard, josh lipton. >> check out hewlett-packard which is popping here at the close, up 2.6% on good volume. of course, hewlett-packard getting ready to report quarterly earnings. the street looking for 71 cents on sales of 27.79 billion. traders saying a lot of short covering, remember, in this name. maybe some people betting that they will report here, surprise positively, not quite sure, but

we'll stick around here, bill and get you more information as we get it. >> all right. thank you. bob, has to be something of a victory for the bulls today, huh? >> endless speculation about e hewlett, breaking up some of the business, staying with enterprise and it's endless, the speculation. let me talk about the rally. first off, how strange things are. the vix just collapsed. last few days, volatility is up and people are out buying protection. 2:30 the vix collapsed and less demand for puts that are out there. don't ask me why, it's collapsed, and when that happened it set off a sequence of events. buying occurs in the e-mini futures and the spiders. that's where the daily and professional guys go in. all of a sudden the e-mini futures contracts start spiking and business moves up, and then treasuries start dropping. look at the tlt, long-term treasury bonds where the guys go in. they stop dropping.

why is this happening? i don't know, guys. passive demand, maybe, that's out there? and remember einhorn was talking about apple. apple has moved up at the same time. >> market's got big expectations apparently for hewlett-packard. we'll keep an eye on that. we'll take a break with the dow right now down 26 point and, again, a lot of that attributable to this comeback for hewlett-packard which has earnings coming out. >> a nice comeback. are we going to come back and go into positive territory? will this market avoid a two-day losing streak? we'll check it out. >> and the ceo of an american tire-maker calls french workers lays? >> really? >> then his company's website gets hacked? coincidence? somebody works hard to do that. we'll ask him about that and find out what's behind the war of words with france later on the "closing bell."

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welcome back. our next guest says forget the warnings call for a top in the market. he says they might not be warranted. >> did you say that, bob kaiser? he says the rally is for real and the s&p 500 can stay above 1500 where it is right now and also with us larry cantor of barclays. we'll get to him in a moment

here. what's more significant to you, the selloff we've seen the last couple of days or the comeback we've had in the last hour here? >> it's to be expected because at the beginning of the year we thought the s&p would get to 1600 this year, 10%. still thinkner from n a straight line, and that's sort of an understatement, a conservative place to begin from. we actually think 1700 could be possible but a lot of things have to fall into place this year for that to be happen. >> you would be buying these dips. >> until proven otherwise, yes. the same mantra we've heard for the last few months. don't fight the fed. >> larry, you've heard the same way. you've been very constructive on this market, but what's the catalyst that's actually going to keep things going on the upside? are you expecting declines along the way? >> yeah. i mean, i'll be a little less surprised with the more significant correction here. i mean, we looked at global stock markets. up almost 20% of the last year. had a great start to the year,

as you know. markets don't go up in a straight line. we do have the sequestration which i agree with stan druckenmiller. i don't think it's a big deal, but at the end of the month the continuation resolution to fund the government is a bigger deal so the next few weeks could be a little bit choppy. europe looks like the data is weaker. i wouldn't be surprised to see more of a pullback. gasoline prices have risen significantly. that combined with more fiscal cuts could hit the economy a little bit. i feel like with all the good news on the stock market, we're probably due for a little correction here. >> i think you're right. the fed is the thing that's lev stated this market so it's the fed that could bring it down, and that's what spooked the markets yet. what are you going to buy here? what do you think will lead this market higher if it's destined to go to 1600? >> the fed's game plan is to-to-stimulate the market through housing. the supply of existing homes is down to almost historic lows. the fed is force feeding

mortgage liquidity to the marketplace so it seems to reason that the home builders are in a great place as long as the economy stays -- >> even on the day that stephen nicholas says it feels the housing market has peaked and they are downgrading like the home depot and lowe's. >> if the housing market peaked the market has a bigger problem meaning quantitative easing and the fed has failed and we could be headed for recession. >> down lower, down 53 points on the dow jones industrial average. gentlemen, thank you very much. >> thanks, larry. tight on time this time. >> got the closing countdown right after this short break. >> and then we're just minutes away from a pair of very big earnings that could help set the tone for tomorrow. instant analysis on numbers from hewlett-packard and aig right after the close. >> and then don't miss my exclusive interview with aig ceo bob benmosche. find out if super storm sandy took a bite out of the insurer's bottom line. you're watching "closing bell" on cnbc, first in business worldwide. revolutionizing an industry can be a tough act to follow,

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